Telecommunications networks that provide wireless access (e.g. GSM, UMTS, WiMax, LTE) have developed tremendously over the past years. In such networks, voice and data services can be provided to communication devices having a high mobility, i.e. the communication devices are not bound to a particular location and are freely movable through the area covered by the network. A gateway node of the telecommunications network enables connection to a further network, for example a network based on IP such as the internet.
One particular example of usage of telecommunications networks involves services relating to so-called machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, also referred to as machine-type communications (MTC). M2M is currently being standardized in 3GPP (see e.g. TS 22.368). MTC applications typically involve hundreds, thousands or millions of communication devices which each act as a communication devices to the telecommunication network. Such communication devices may be stationary or non-stationary. An example involves the electronic reading of e.g. ‘smart’ electricity meters at the homes of a large customer base over the telecommunications network from a server connected to the further network. Other examples include sensors, meters, vending or coffee machines, car meters for route pricing applications, navigation equipment etc. that can be equipped with communication modules that allow exchanging information with other equipment, such as a data processing centre over the telecommunications network. Such devices may also be monitored by the data processing centre. The data processing centre may e.g. store the data and/or provide a schedule for maintenance people to repair or refill a machine, meter or sensor or may update information in the device. Also, the data processing centre may be configured for processing data received from mobile communications devices, e.g. for road pricing applications.
Generally, in cases of potentially many coincident requests from devices to a network, some form of control of the use of network resources is desired. As an example, many mobile devices are nowadays able to retrieve e-mail messages from a network. Lots of devices may be programmed to retrieve e-mail messages exactly at the same moment in time, many times a day. In fact mostly there is no need for these devices or applications to have their requests handled immediately. It is the nature of the application that issues the service requests at the same point in time.
In telecommunications network, data is usually temporarily buffered when immediate processing is not possible. However, if due to congestion a network element is not capable to handle (grant or reject) service requests within a certain time frame, keeping these requests pending is not an option. Mostly these types of procedures are using time-out mechanisms and if no response is received the request procedure will be aborted and most probably a new request will be generated. This again will cause an extra load on the already overloaded network element and possibly on other network elements involved in handling the request.
In the example of M2M applications, EP 2 096 884 discloses specifying one or more time intervals in the telecommunications network during which a particular communication device or group of communication devices is allowed to access the network in order to enable a network operator to control the use of network resources. Access requests to the network outside the specified time intervals are denied.
Whereas this approach enables the network operator to provide e.g. certain access grant time intervals to specific groups of customer devices during which access to the network may be granted, the sending of access requests is still at the discretion of the customer or device and can not be controlled from the network.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for improved control of network resources by a network operator.